20 Amazing Modern Illustrated Movie Posters

This week, the gorgeous painted poster for Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom made the rounds on the internet, getting everyone a little bit more excited for the film’s release. Though the poster isn’t the least bit surprising for a Wes Anderson film, we still thought it was exceptionally lovely, especially for a modern movie poster. Today, most go for flash over beauty, bombarding us with huge celebrity faces, typographic tricks, or slick graphic design. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — there are lots of wonderful posters in that vein. But it’s interesting to note that in the past, almost all movie posters were illustrated by hand, and even as recently as the ’80s, the posters for films like Blade Runner and Raiders of the Lost Ark — the kind of movies that today would warrant more flashy advertisements — sported lovely hand-drawn art. However, the poster for Moonrise Kingdom inspired us to dig up a few more modern movie posters, released over the last few years, that are hand-drawn or illustrated. They’re not all beautiful, exactly, but they’re all refreshing in this age of shiny red text on black backgrounds.